Drunk-Dialing : The Light Comic Opera

We’ve blogged on occasion about the infamous drink and dial – that decision to call someone in the middle of the night and share with them the penetrating truths that have come to you after half a bottle of Jack Daniels and three keg stands. Who doesn’t enjoy getting a call at 3am from someone who is ready either to take you for an unwanted drunken stumble down nostalgia lane, or to tell you that they just figured out what went wrong in your relationship and, surprise, surprise, the blame does not lie with the lush making the call.

In our tome of drunken exploits, “The Man Who Scared a Shark To Death: And Other True Tales of Drunken Debauchery,” we chronicle the tale of quite possibly the oldest immature drunk dialer, a 52-year-old Danish man who was playing with his toy ships in the bath when he decided to phone the local sea rescue unit and inform them that one of his ships was in danger of capsizing. They actually sent rescue boats to look for the sinking ship... He had to pay a hefty fine for the lark. We also mention in the book Virgin Mobile Australia’s plan to combat drink dialing by allowing their users to ban all incoming calls from suspect drink-dialers between the hours of 12am-6pm. It’s a good plan.

As much as we’ve written about the drink-and-dial, and as many such calls as we’ve made, we have yet to put the phenomenon to a tune. (Editor’s Note: We are, however, working on a Jerky Boys-like album of crank calls in which we phone up bars that don’t serve food and get increasingly testy with them when they refuse to take our lunch orders. “Alright, ya goof, ya gotta pen? Ok, one pastrami on rye… What? What do you mean you don’t got food?” Recording companies interested in distributing this for us should email either of the authors directly via the contacts page.)

Ed Harcourt, an up-and-coming singer/songwriter (he’s the guy in the photo for those who thought he might be a drunk-dialer we're having trouble with), has found a novel way to get a persistent drunk-dialer off his back. Rather than subscribe to a service like the one mentioned above, he’s recorded, “You Only Call Me When You’re Drunk” (listen to full song here), which should not be confused with the Pet Shop Boys prequel to this song -- before the relationship completely deteriorated -- “You Only Tell Me You Love Me When You’re Drunk,” (or their ode to that uncle who's a little too hands-on for comfort during the holidays, “Your Funny Uncle”).

Harcourt’s been getting some calls from a “deplorable old friend, somewhere in the East end,” and the song is his gentle request for his buddy to screw off and let him get a good night’s sleep because he has work in the morning and his buddy may or may not live in the park. One wonders if Harcourt hasn’t placed a few of these wee-small-hours-of-the-morning calls himself; he writes like someone who knows the challenges: "I guess you have me on speed-dial/for your eyesight is too blurred, to text me any words.”

The song starts off slow and in the kind of mood you'd be in if you picked up the phone while still half-asleep and confused as to who the hell could be calling at such a godforsaken hour, then it picks up in pitch and ferocity and takes on a more operatic quality. This is one call too many and it's time he sobers his buddy up with some home truths. They used to be close friends, cursing the local rich boys and committing acts of costly, albeit righteous, vandalism -- "As dreamers we'd scream all the songs/we'd known all our lives off the roofs of the city bankers/ break in the windows, burn all the documents/Rich daddy's boys!" -- now though his buddy has become an energy drain, a nuisance who is more trouble than the nostalgia is worth. Like many drunk-dialers he's gripped by the wanderlust and when the bars are closed, he picks up the phone to continue the adventure, "You only call me when you're drunk/Cursing down the phone, you can't stand being alone."

But for the guy who has yet to sever all connections to civilized society, it's time to hang up. He tells him, "Give all your sadness a last embrace/Turn up sober at my place, we'll talk about it face to face." And that's one call the drunken friend is unlikely to make.

Call 911! DWI is really 'Dialing while intoxicated'

Before he began to resemble a manatee carrying twins, a lean Marlon Brando once remarked ‘What you got’ when asked ‘What are you rebelling against?’

Later in his career, when he began rebelling against dynamism and a high fiber diet (he famously bared his fat arse to 100 extras between takes during the filming of the Godfather's wedding scene, causing more than one cast member to upchuck into their tiramisu), he literally became a larger than life icon.

Still, he's remembered more for delivering lines that became catchphrases than being unable to refuse an offer of an all-you can-eat buffet.

An Atlanta teen, exhibiting some Brando-esque bellicoseness of his own, mouthed off at cops with a ballsy ‘Yeah, what of it?’ when asked if he’d been drinking---an admirable retort if it were not the the end result of having drunk dialed 911. (a parting shot worthy of a free copy of The Shark Book too, incidentally, if its authors weren't the stingiest of buggers). The teen had been arguing with his dad about, appropriately enough, underage drinking when the old man threatened to call the cops on his pie-eyed scion. The son interrupted, saying he’d do it himself. He was promptly arrested. (full story here).

As a second public service announcement, (don't say we didn't already warn you about the perils of drunk dialing) it's best to leave such ripostes to the imagination of Elmore Leonard.

EMT Phone Home

Call it a wish for the party never to end or a less noble desire to pull some unsuspecting sleeping sober person into your drunken, maniacal world, but, for whatever reason, picking up the phone at 3am while so drunk you stink of it often seems like a good idea at the time. The urge to drink and dial, apparently, affects folks in all professions including those who should -- even when they spend an evening up-turning tequilas and slowly building up a pile of lime rinds around them -- know better.An off-duty (in every sense of that term) emergency medical technician in Staten Island broke one of the main rules surrounding her very profession – one that every parent who does not fetch their child’s lunch from the couch cushions knows: do not crank call 911 emergency services.

The lady in question did just this, calling in a phony assault complaint against the bartender who took her keys in order to prevent her from giving lessons in interpretative driving on Staten Island’s roads. Unhappy with the service she received, the wronged woman then went on to her emergency band radio, tuned it to an NYPD frequency, and gave everyone who was listening at that time a lecture on the myriad inadequacies of Staten Island law enforcement. Having thus shamed Staten Island’s best (or confused NYPD’s) she then went on to find a payphone and make three crank calls to 911, two reporting a jumper in Lower New York Bay, and a third saying that a man with a knife had taken her purse.

The former two calls, not surprisingly, resulted in a huge FDNY and police turnout, which, had their been a drowning man, would have been a good thing. Police traced the calls and found the EMT, apparently out of quarters, at the payphone from which she had made the last call. (Full story here)